So GQ sent me down to Monroe, La. (GUMBO GUMBO
GUMBO), to hang out with the Duck Dynasty family. You can read the story right here, and whenever I go deep into the heart of
'MERICA—be it for this assignment or the
Kid Rock cruise or the Values Voters Summit—I'm always careful not to be the sneering LIBRUL who
ventures into red-state territory just to rip on all the people there. That would be unfair, predictable, and dickish. I try my best to keep that shit balanced, and
I know that sounds hypocritical given all the stones I throw here at Deadspin
like the NERDY KEYBOARD COWBOY NERD that I am.
Whenever you meet face-to-face with people you don't necessarily see
eye-to-eye with and talk to them and drink lots of beer with them, you're almost
always more likely to understand them and like them. That's how it works.

Advertisement

So it is withpatriarch Phil Robertson and his
family. I met Phil and his brother
"Uncle Si" and three of his sons, and they were all cool. (If you're unfamiliar, the Robertsons are your basic American success story—they got rich by making duck-hunting products and got famous by appearing in a reality show.) They welcomed me into Phil's house and let me
fire guns and offered me free iced tea and beef jerky and that'll win me over
no matter who you are. But Phil
Robertson is a deeply religious fellow who takes his Bible straight, no chaser—the whole
family does—and has decidedly
retrograde, ripped-from-Corinthians views on topics like abortion and
homosexuality. You'll find many of those
views in the piece I wrote at GQ. A taste: "It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man's anus."

I
don't agree with Phil's politics, and I have a lot of gay relatives and
colleagues who would bristle at Phil's "hate the sin, love
the sinner" view of homosexuality. They've had to hear that shit for years.
But I still like Phil and found him to be an otherwise decent fellow. I think it's all right to think that, and I think it's all right to hope that whatever fuss arises out of his comments—it's happening already—will soften him a bit toward what he believes to be wicked behavior. Consider this my own version of "hate the sin, love the sinner."

Advertisement

As always, I had extra shit from my trip that didn't make it
into the article. You can read those
extras at GQ later this week, but here's a quick preview:

When I got to the hotel, I noticed the tap water
was piss-colored. There was even a note
from the hotel that said, "You may notice the water has a golden
color." WHY YES I DID. The hotel pointed me to an official state
notice that declared the tap water in Monroe safe to drink despite its
color. With all due respect to the fine
people working the Louisiana state government, I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU.

I bought a duck call at the Duck Commander store
and those things aren't cheap. There was
a counter featuring custom duck calls decorated with the American flag and what not
and those calls ran well over $100. It
looked like a head shop. I paid
$24 bucks for the cheapest one (take one of those recorders they play
in elementary school and cut if in half—that's what one looks like) and gave
it to my kid, who managed to get it confiscated in record time. These are very carefully constructed duck
calls, with a delicate reed insert that can break if you blow too hard. Well my kid wailed on that shit like Clarence
Clemons. It sounded like a fucking
FRANKENDUCK was stomping around the house.
Do not buy your child a duck call unless you plan on having them kill
ducks.

I did not get to ask Phil where he stands on the
"Is Santa white?" issue, but I could venture a guess.

The Robertson family wasn't always insanely
wealthy. For a good long time, while
Phil was drinking, the family lived in squalor.
Here's a story from Phil about the time mice infested their place: "I
spread d-CON from one end to the other. So listen: about a couple days went by;
we didn't see any mice. What I didn't know is that mice, whatever's in the
poison, the d-CON: whatever's in it, they get thirsty. There was a leak in the
wall of the trailer where the hot water tank was. We started smelling
something, and I finally went out there and looked: the paneling was pulsating.
It was like, moving, but some of them are not quite dead. But they had packed
into that thing thicker than insulation. I took the panel off, and there was
just a horde of dead and dying mice, and they were like, this thick. So what
I'm telling you is if you ever run into a situation where you have a lot of
mice, don't put down that much d-CON."

Here's Phil on beatniks: "The current
movement in the United States on our own soil started with the Beatniks,
morphed into the hippies. They run the
government. They run the universities. They're in our judicial system. You say,
no Jesus. If we had spiritual men making political decisions, we'd be like,
good to go."

And on abortion rights advocates: "Take a
child out of your own womb? Have a heart, woman. I mean, goodnight. They are
senseless."

Si Robertson talks about the Viet Cong in his
book, and while I toured the hunting grounds with his brother, I had a stoner
thought. When Si Robertson hunts ducks,
he hides in the bushes with his weapon, for hours at a time, ready to ambush
the fuckers. He knows the terrain well
and can use it to his killing advantage.
So to the ducks, SI IS THE VIET CONG.
Think about it. I asked Si if he
would ever return to Vietnam as a tourist.
His reply: "Probably not."